Dunkin’ Donuts and Starbucks are after your lunch money

A $3.99 grilled-chicken flatbread is being launched by Dunkin’ Donuts.

This comes after the launch last month of seven new lunch sandwiches in some of the Starbucks stores. The groups are trying to entice lunch consumers and boost their afternoon sales.

Dunkin’s marketing president said that they need to raise awareness. The customers looking for food after noon are there, but the group is best known for its doughnuts and coffee. Lunch has become the new battleground, with chains changing their normal lunchtime fare and battling it out with sit-down restaurants to attract customers.

Coffee and doughnut stores achieve 65% of their customer traffic during the morning, with lunch about 32% and dinner is only about 2%. Starbucks has the same attitude as Dunkin and are targeting lunch customers. It started its offering of new sandwiches in Virginia and Phoenix.

The coffee selling stores have been experimenting with methods of drawing customers after noon. Around 40% of Dunkin’s sales are now generated after 11am which is no change from 12 months ago. Starbucks has seen more success with around 60% of sales coming in after 11am compared to 50% last year.